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Saturday, November 22, 2008

What goes on in your mind?

I'm going to let you in to the secret recesses of my mind. It all starts with an idea. In this case, I knew I really wanted to take part in Platinum Chef Challenge 10. I missed the last one, so I really wanted to take part. Especially since the ingredients sounded like fun - lentils, lemon, goat cheese, spinach, and vinegar.

So now that I knew I wanted to take part, I had to come up with some recipes. I'm entirely uncreative this round. Maybe because I'm out of practice. For me, lentils = soup and goat cheese = salad. Soup and salad is such a great combination, and currently one of my favorite things to order when we go out.

Next up in my process is "the internets." I already knew what to do with the salad, but I needed a good lentil soup recipe. Nothing was really singing to me, until I started seeing recipes for "lentil soup with sausage." Now that is my kind of soup. I love sausage in soup. There's no better way to jazz up a minestrone. And making a lentil and sausage soup just couldn't be easier. Especially with a fridge full of veggies to add to it! The soup makes enough for lots of leftovers too, like all good soup.

The soup and salad turned into the perfect summer lunch. I love the warm, spiciness of the soup. The only thing I would change about the salad is to keep the apples raw - I thought the warm apples would be a better combo with the warm soup, but I decided I didn't like the soft consistency with the crisp endive.